Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Friday, March 7, 2014

Support and Criticism for de Blasio from from Anti-Charter Wing

How weak can they get? I voted for de Blasio in the primary because of the poor options. But when it came to the general election I just couldn't do it and wrote in the name of a real reform Staten Island activist who is running for the state board of regents. I'm so glad my instinct that deB would cave won out.

See Interview w/ Fariña below by JuanGonzalez below where he writes: “She’s
even studying the facts. In the case of PS 149, for example, the
Education Department officially projected that the co-location of
Success Academy would produce enrollment at 132% of capacity. What idiot
bureaucrat plans for an overcrowded school?”

Sorry
to say 12 of the co-location proposals that she is allowing to go
forward will push the school building to 100% utilization or more; which
we know is an underestimate of the actual level of overcrowding, since
the Blue Book utilization formula does not properly capture the need for
smaller classes, art and music rooms, programming of lunch at
reasonable hours, access to the gym, or the need for specialty rooms for
mandated services to students with disabilities.

Under
the “revised” co-location of American Dream charter into PS 30 in the
Bronx, the building is projected to go to 123-141% capacity!

She also says: “She won’t keep approving small schools that only require more high-paid supervisors to run them.”

But
most every new school she is approving require not just more space, but
more administration, including high-paid principals, etc., wasting
money on bureaucracy that could go to hiring teachers for smaller
classes. We have seen a huge explosion of spending on out =of-classroom
positions the last ten years, with a sharp decline in the number of
teachers, causing ever-increasing class sizes.

Gonzalez: Mayor de Blasio is not being overly harsh on charters, he's just not letting charter administrators do whatever they want

In
the battle with Eva Moskowitz over charter schools, Mayor de Blasio is
only restricting Moskowitz's power and putting limits on her control
over the interests of city school children.

David Handschuh/New York Daily News

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said that under the Bloomberg
administration, Eva Moskowitz could do 'whatever she wanted.' Not
anymore.

Nothing personal, says Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, but there will
be no more favored treatment for Eva Moskowitz and her Success Charter
Network.
During an extensive interview Thursday, Fariña explained her decision
on whether to move ahead with 45 new schools the Bloomberg
administration had approved to open this September in public school
buildings.
In the end, Fariña gave the green light to 36 of those co-locations,
including 14 new charter schools — a number some public school advocates
consider too high.RELATED: CUOMO TURNS HIS BACK ON CITY KIDS
Fariña even approved five of eight new charter schools sponsored by Moskowitz’s Success Academy network.
In only one case did she deny a planned expansion of an existing school
— killing Success Academy Harlem Central Middle School’s plan to move
194 middle school students into PS 149 on W. 117th St.
So the notion being bandied about by Moskowitz, and in newspaper ads
and television commercials sponsored by the charter school lobby, that
Mayor de Blasio is “axing” charter schools and denying parents the
program of their choice is pure nonsense.RELATED: CHARTER SCHOOL RUMBLE: EVA MOSKOWITZ VS. MAYOR DE BLASIO
It’s just that Moskowitz doesn’t get to call the shots anymore. “She
was allowed to do whatever she wanted” in the past, Fariña said, but the
days of “favorite treatment” are over.
Our new chancellor is actually listening to all sides .
She’s even studying the facts. In the case of PS 149, for example, the
Education Department officially projected that the co-location of
Success Academy would produce enrollment at 132% of capacity.RELATED: BILL’S ORPHANS
What idiot bureaucrat plans for an overcrowded school?
“The people who did these space assignments were not educators,” Fariña said.
From now on, she will apply four criteria in reviewing proposed
co-locations. She won’t put elementary and high schools in the same
building. She won’t keep approving small schools that only require more
high-paid supervisors to run them. She won’t approve co-locations that
require expensive renovations of school properties.RELATED: MAYOR DE BLASIO IS JUST LIVING UP TO CAMPAIGN PROMISES
And, most importantly, she won’t allow reduced services or seats for special education students.
“These are the most vulnerable and highest needs kids in our system,”
Fariña said, but “they were the first kids to lose space or be moved”
under the prior administration.
No one is happier about her policy change than the parents and staff at
the Mickey Mantle school, a program for autistic and emotionally
disturbed children that was slated to lose space and seats to the
proposed expansion of Success Academy.RELATED: CHARTER SCHOOL FAMILIES LEFT SEARCHING
“Our school already lost a music, a theater arts and an art room the
past few years,” said Barry Daub, principal at Mickey Mantle. Those
losses happened to make room for Harlem Success 1, launched in the same
building in 2006.
Mickey Mantle would have lost enrollment and even more space if Fariña had approved the Success Academy expansion.
“We would be doing physical and occupational therapy in the halls,” Daub said.
Yvette Santana, whose grandson Aaron Cruz is a fourth-grader at Mickey
Mantle, is furious at the way parents and children are being pitted
against each other.
“We don’t want to throw anybody out, but it’s not right to take away the programs our children have,” Santana said.
Fariña’s people say the four middle schools in the 22-school charter
network Moskowitz already operates have enough empty seats to absorb the
194 students from Success Academy.
No child is being denied an education. It’s just that one charter network is no longer getting everything it demands.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are welcome. Irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted, as will all commercial links. Comment moderation is on, so if your comment does not appear it is because I have not been at my computer (I do not do cell phone moderating).

UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.